The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750-1850 Author(S): Ahmad Dallal Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol
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The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750-1850 Author(s): Ahmad Dallal Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 113, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1993), pp. 341- 359 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/605385 . Accessed: 30/03/2011 21:19 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aos. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Oriental Society. http://www.jstor.org THE ORIGINS AND OBJECTIVES OF ISLAMIC REVIVALIST THOUGHT, 1750-1850 AHMADDALLAL SMITHCOLLEGE This paper examines and compares four major intellectual trends of Islamic thought in the period from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. It characterizes the works of the Arabian Muhammad Ibn CAbdal-Wahhab (1703-1787), the Indian Shah Wall Allah (1703-1762), the west African cUthman Ibn Fudi (1754-1817), and the north African Muhammad CAlial-Saniusi (1787- 1859). It then argues that, contrary to the accepted paradigm, the intellectual models produced by these scholars are quite distinct and cannot be grouped under one rubric. STUDIESOF MODERNISLAMIC THOUGHT often assert that the "fundamentalist tradition"5 is also founded on the the roots of the modern Islamic revival originate in the assumption that, despite the diversity in their "organi- eighteenth century. An intellectual link is postulated be- zational styles," the revivalist movements stretching tween Wahhabi puritanical ideas and later Islamic from the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century have thought; Wahhabism, it is argued, continues to inspire a produced a single, more or less homogeneous, body of growing number of Muslims in their encounter with the thought which belongs to an identifiable "fundamental- problems of the modern world.1 "Wahhabi" is applied ist mode of Islam."6 This mode which traverses Islamic to such diverse groups as the followers of the Indian history is defined in terms of such themes as the need to Sayyid Ahmad Barelvia2 and the Subbanu al-Muslimin abide by the Qur'an and the Sunna, return to origins, re- (association of young Muslims) of west Africa,3 despite vival of ijtihad and hadith studies, rejection of innova- the recognition that in both of these cases the title Wah- tion and imitation (taqlid) in matters of law, and habi is a misnomer.4 The argument for the continuity of rejection of the excesses of sufism.7 More generally I Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History (Prince- however, that "the title became unavoidable on account of its ton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1977), 42; for a similar notion of wide prevalence"; Ahmad, Wahabi, v. The name was given to the gradual spread of Wahhabism in the Muslim world see the mid-twentieth-century movement in west Africa by the H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago: The Univ. French head of the Bureau of Muslim Affairs in Bamako in of Chicago Press, 1947), 27-28. the 1950s; Kaba, 8. 5 2 Qeyamuddin Ahmad, The Wahabi Movement in India Rudolph Peters, "Idjtihad and Taqlid in 18th and 19th (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1966). Century Islam," Die Welt des Islams 20.3-4 (1980): 145. 3 Lansine Kaba, The Wahhabiyya:Islamic Reform and Poli- 6 John O. Voll, "The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamen- tics in French West Africa (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. talist," International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 Press, 1974). (1979): 160. 4 7 Bari argues convincingly that the name "Indian Wah- There is abundantreference in writings on 18th- and 19th- habis" given to the nineteenth-century militant reform move- century Islamic thought and movements in which these themes ment led by Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi (d. 1831) was an are said to define the common intellectual trend of fundamen- afterthought, "perhaps given by co-religionist opponents to talist or revivalist Islam; see, for example, Smith, 42, 52; Fazlur discredit them"; M. A. Bari, "The Politics of Sayyid Ahmad Rahman, Islam (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968), 242- Barelwi," Islamic Culture 31.1 (1957): 158. He also argues 50; John Esposito, "Traditionand Modernization in Islam," in that the name was adopted by British administrators for the Movements and Issues in World Religions, ed. Charles Wei- same purposes; M. A. Bari, "A Nineteenth-Century Muslim hsun Fu and GerhardE. Spiegler (New York: Greenwood Press, Reform Movement in India," in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1987), 92; Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Honor of Hamilton A. R. Gibb, ed. George Makdisi (Cam- Africa (London: Longman, 1984), 157; John O. Voll, "Muham- bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965), 84. Ahmad adds, mad Hayya al-Sindi and Muhammad ibn CAbdal-Wahhab: An 341 342 Journal of the American Oriental Society 113.3 (1993) these themes are said to assert transcendence, unity, and attractive in many ways, primarily because it allows authenticity as opposed to immanence, diversity, and the student of modem Islam to analyze and understand openness.8 It is thus commonplace to speak of Wahhabi a complex set of variables in the context of one co- influences on the thought of the Indian Shah Wall Allah herent whole. The connections made to achieve this al-Dihlawi,9 the west African cUthman Ibn Fiudi,' and coherence are at best fragile. Any familiarity with the the north African Muhammad CAllal-Sanuisi.1 perception of Wahhabism in the Islamic world would To lend further credibility to the theory of a united confirm the rather conspicuous status it has among Islamic revivalism, scholars argue that the renowned most Muslims, which undermines any parallels be- revivalists from different parts of the Islamic world tween Wahhabis and other movements enjoying gen- converged with a "small group of teachers of hadith in eral or local recognition outside Arabia. Second, the the holy cities" of Mecca and Medina, thus creating general characterizations of modern Islamic revival are overlapping "intellectual family trees."12This theory is not always applicable to specific instances of this revival. Even a cursory reading of the work of Shah Wall Allah, for example, reveals that, contrary to the of an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth-CenturyMa- Analysis accepted paradigm, his reformed "Neo-Sufism" is not dina," BSOAS 38.1 (1974); John O. Voll, "Hadith Scholars and stripped of its "metaphysical character";13this, despite Tariqahs: An Ulama Group in the 18th Century Haramaynand the fact that both Wall Allah and the ardent anti-sufi Asian and their Impact in the Islamic World," Journal of Afri- Ibn CAbdal-Wahhab studied under the same Medinese can Studies 15.3-4 (1980); Louis Brenner, "Muslim Thought hadith scholar Muhammad Haya al-Sindi14 (d. 1750). in West Africa: The Case of Shaykh Uth- Eighteenth-Century The "intellectual family-trees" of students and teachers man b. Fudi," in Eighteenth-CenturyRenewal and Reform in cannot serve as evidence for common origins; educa- Islam, ed. Nehemia Levtzion and John O. Voll (Syracuse: Syr- tion acquired from the same teacher could be, and in- acuse Univ. Press, 1987), 61; Muin ud-Din Ahmad Khan, deed was, put to completely different uses by different "Fara'idi Movement," Islamic Studies 9 (1970): 123; and B. G. students, and the commonality of the source does not Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa prove that the outcome is identical or even similar. The (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 107-8. only information that can be safely derived from such 8 Voll, "Sudanese Mahdi"; Gibb, 32; and Peters, 132. evidence relates to the pool of prominent teachers of 9 Smith, 52; Voll, "Intellectual Group," 39; Rahman, Islam, the time with whom a serious student might study. If 242-50; Aziz Ahmad, "Political and Religious Ideas of Shah accepted, the allegations made in an anti-Wahhabi Wali-Ullah of Delhi," The Muslim World 52.1 (1962): 22; and polemic, in which Muhammad Ibn Sulayman al-Kurdi Esposito, 92. 10 and Muhammad Haya al-Sindi warned their students Gibb, 27, 30; and Hiskett, Development, 289-91. against the excesses of Ibn CAbd al-Wahhab, would l and Gibb, 27; Hiskett, Development, 256, 259; Martin, further corroborate this conclusion.15 99, 103. In fact, this intellectual genealogy is often stretched back in time to include, in addition to the Sanusi and Wahhabi movements, the Murabitunand the Muwahhiduinof north Af- Press, 1987), 32-33; also on CUthmanIbn Fudi see Brenner, rica; see Gibb, 26; and Nehemia Levtzion, "Introduction,"in 61; on the teachersof al-Saniisisee Peters,145. Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa, ed. Nehemia Levtzion 13 Compare, for example, with Rahman, Islam, 253-54; and and Humphrey J. Fisher (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Voll, "HadithScholars." 14 1987), 12.